Tom Homan pushed back on claims ICE targeted parents at a school bus stop in Danbury, Connecticut, as DHS called the allegation politically motivated.
Page A11From§Eachthe early evening edition — 30 August 2026
DHS denies torture in ICE detention the same week deportees recount their treatment by ICE.
DHS put out a statement — a real statement, on letterhead — denying reports of torture, beatings, and medical neglect in ICE detention, and I want to be clear that a denial is not nothing. A denial is a document. It exists. People can point to it. That's more than the other side has, except for the deportees sent to Liberia who apparently also have documents, in the form of their own recounted treatment, on the record, in the New York Times, which is — look, denials and testimony are both forms of speech, that's just true, and I'm not going to sit here and rank them. Border czar Tom Homan also weighed in, correctly, forcefully, after Senator Murphy said ICE was 'terrorizing little kids,' and Homan fired back, which is the appropriate institutional response to an accusation: you fire back. You don't fire back with evidence, necessarily, you fire back with firing back. That's — that's how rebuttal works, generally, in a hearing, or a hallway. I'll note DHS did not deny that people are held. It denied torture, beatings, and medical neglect specifically, three named categories, which means anything outside those three categories is technically not covered by the denial, which I did not say, forget I said that. The Liberia deportees describe 'harrowing details' of expulsion and treatment, and the agency's position is that harrowing is not the same as tortured, which is a distinction I would defend at greater length if I had greater length, or a stronger distinction. What I can tell you is that the statement was issued promptly, the language was firm, and firmness, historically, in this line of work, is treated as a substitute for an investigation. That's not cynicism, that's just how the paperwork flows: allegation, denial, next allegation, next denial, indefinitely, until somebody with subpoena power gets bored. Until then, the department stands by its statement, I stand by the department, and I would like the record to reflect that I only walked one of those sentences back, which for me is practically a clean outing.
“DHS denies torture the same week the people who lived through it are literally naming it on the record — that's not a coincidence, that's a denial with a return address. When Homan fires back at 'terrorizing kids,' he's not answering the deportees in Liberia, he's answering a senator, because the senator's easier to out-talk than a sworn account.”
“The department issued a formal denial, which is the appropriate channel, and Border Czar Homan responded to the senator's characterization directly and forcefully. The Liberia accounts are, I'm told, still being reviewed — reviewed, not confirmed, there's a difference, I just need everyone to sit with that difference for a second.”
The receipts
The UN torture rapporteur found direct-contact electric shock gloves "incompatible with the absolute prohibition of torture" - ICE plans to spend up to $20 million on them ABC10 San Diego / UN Special Rapporteur finding, August 2026
DHS denies reports of torture, beatings and medical neglect in ICE detentionThe Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Sunday denied a report in The New York Times about harsh treatment of migrants in immigration detention facilities. “Another day and another hoax about ICE detention from the @nytimes,” DHS…
Ten deportees said they experienced or witnessed what they called abusive or violent treatment by ICE. They spent months in detention, they said, before being sent to nations where they had no ties.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.